


Tick, Tock

by Ishti



Category: Aveyond
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 06:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16444742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishti/pseuds/Ishti
Summary: Time can't stop us.





	Tick, Tock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HoneyButterChloe](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=HoneyButterChloe).



> Here's the R/L the world didn't ask for! I hope you love it, Chloe!

“You’ve got to hold my hand.”

Lars’ hand was outstretched towards her, peeking out from his cerulean robes like an animal, stiff from hibernation, emerging after winter; his body was angled towards her, stance imperious and sure, but his face was turned just away, staring down the dark passage into Aesma’s lair. His other hand gripped a nondescript clock close against his hip. Rhen squinted, furrowing her brow, but she couldn’t see his expression.

_Tick, tock._

“Come on. The clock won’t affect us both if you aren’t holding my hand.”

He turned to glance at her now, their eyes barely meeting before he looked away again. His jaw twitched. Rhen hesitated.

“How will we fight Aesma if we’re holding hands?” she asked.

Lars scowled. “How will we fight Aesma if we _don’t use the clock?”_ he snapped.

“Can’t you just drop a fireball on the whole cave or something?”

“Don’t you think I would have done that by now?”

“This is hare-brained!” sniffed Rhen. “I’m not going to _hold your hand,_ Lars.”

“You--you seriously don’t own any swords you can use with just one hand?” bit back Lars, straightening his spine, but Rhen caught the barest hint of hurt in his retort.

John unsheathed his rapier and handed it off to Rhen. “We can make it work.”

Rhen took the sword, blinking in her silence. What was going _on_ with this dumb, cabbage-headed boy?

_Tick, tock._

Lars shook out his hair. “Well, if her highness doesn’t _want_ to do it, then we’re not doing it. Might as well launch the clock back up where it came from.”

There was an exceptional haughtiness in his tone, a sneer Rhen hadn’t heard since their earliest days at school, and it disturbed her deeply. “You’ve got some nerve,” she spat. “All I do is raise a _concern,_ and you--”

“Oh, I’m _so sorry;_ I shouldn’t talk to a _princess_ like that, should I? My _humblest_ apologies.”

“Maybe not in front of _the entire group.”_

_But why is his voice shaking?_

Lars never talked about Rhen’s royal lineage. He usually actively ignored it--he _usually_ still lorded over her like he did back in Veldarah, if somewhat more amicably. When anyone else mentioned the whole… princess… thing, he would make himself absent.

Funny, how she’d never noticed before. Was he jealous?

_Tick, tock._

“I have a sword, I suppose,” said Rhen, struggling to keep her voice even. “What’s your plan?”

“Just hold my hand,” said Lars, “and we’ll fight, just like we always do.”

His hand had remained outstretched toward her the entire time.

The softening of his voice, the sudden discarding of the steel veil, caught her off-guard, and her heart leapt to her throat. She was out of reasonable concerns to shield her from that hand. She and Lars would bust in there ablaze, and they’d cast their spells and sing their songs side by side, and they’d win, and they’d do it locked in sync by the strength of their entwined fingers. Because they had to.

_Tick, tock._

Rhen’s pulse was noticeably faster than it was a minute prior. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was just a hand. They’d fought back to back, weathered storms with their arms linked, ridden in _very_ close contact on Bertha the dragon--why was this hand so _strange_ to her? _Their quest was almost over._ They--they couldn’t _be_ any closer.

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think through the swirling mess in her head, the feelings without words, and she couldn’t; she couldn’t make sense of Lars, the Lars she’d known a whole year and to whom she’d grown as close as anyone would grow to someone with whom they’d shared multiple near-death experiences--or Lars just as Lars, the frustrating person she knew, with all of his idiosyncrasies and vices and strengths, his intensity, the unfathomable transformative power not only in his magic but in the depths of his personality, a quality she respected and admired and often envied--and she couldn’t make sense of why he was holding out his hand to her now, or why he wouldn’t look at her, or why he was upset, or why he called her _princess--_

And then, suddenly, she could, his hand outstretched, his face turned away, his spine straight and proud and cold, his robes fraying at the edges, the staff on his back of finer quality than they could find on the isles, his feet planted firmly on the stony ground before the lair of the very last demon they’d ever have to fight--before the end of their quest, before it would all be over. Before she would kill Ahriman and ascend to the throne, and he would….

_Tick, tock._

The blood rushed to her face. She took his hand.

Almost as if surprised, Lars looked back to her, his eyes a little wider. Rhen tried to smile when their eyes met, but she was overwhelmed by the quivering of her stomach. She shook her head and forced the smile out, sympathy mingling with trepidation on her face. Slowly, he returned a small smile as Rhen laced their fingers together. He was blushing; she could tell even in the dark.

Lars let out a quiet laugh like a breath he’d been holding. “Just--just… don’t let go.”

Rhen clasped his hand tighter. “I’m not gonna leave you.”

And all at once, the quiet stare between them was broken as Te’ijal yanked Rhen’s braid from behind, gripping it firmly with one hand. “I am also prepared to fight!”

Rhen yelped. _“Do you mind?!”_

“I do not mind! But you should wash it tonight, or the odor may perhaps become unbearable tomorrow.”

Elini linked her arm with Lars’ on his other side. “I am impressed that you choose to cast spells without the use of your hands, young sorcerer,” she said.

“Well, it’s not _ideal,”_ Lars grumbled, shifting his grip on the clock.

“We should hurry before Te’ijal decides to repurpose my hair into a bowstring,” sighed Rhen.

“I will be fighting in melee!”

“Great.”

Lars drew imperceptibly closer to Rhen, squeezing her hand with each of his fingers one by one. “I’m tired of waiting, too. Come on.”

Later, John would ask Rhen why she was smiling from ear to ear when she entered the lair of the most powerful known demon on the mortal plane. Rhen would just shrug, and then laugh, and then busy herself quite intently with her venison haunch.

**Author's Note:**

> AND THEN THEY GOT MARRIED, IDK, THE END


End file.
